Minister Dolores on Laguna/Yemeri Grove Land Issue

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia

The issue of boundary delineation came up as recently as last Thursday when the Maya village of Laguna held a press conference in the south over the issue of land. As we’ve reported, Laguna and Yemeri Grove have been bucking heads over the Maya’s traditional land distribution system. But is there encroachment taking place? In an exclusive interview with Minister of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, News Five asked for a reaction to what’s happening in the south.

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs

“Through the court ruling, the Government of Belize recognised customary land tenure of the Maya people. Now, that doesn’t mean a sort of a full extensive ownership to the total exclusion of everybody else. It is now a matter of our government being able to balance competing interest and private land with the communal land tenure of the Maya people. So I wouldn’t want us to go too far that they want to claim everything. I don’t think that is true. What the Maya people quite rightly are asserting is that customary land tenure and the communal right to land. As Belizeans let us respect one another. Respect has to be a two-way street. Regardless of where we are, regardless of what ethnicity we are, regardless of what part of the country we come from – that respect. And then, of course, unity. We must have one Belize. What George Price and his people back then, the fathers of our country and mothers of our country, what they fought for was a Belize.”